After a pleasant and interesting morning spent at Salinas Grandes we continue our journey west. Ahead of us are roughly 350 kilometers of driving through territory completely unknown to us. On the map it looks relatively simple – a winding line leading from Argentina to Chile, all the way to the town San Pedro de Atacama. Still, we somehow sense that reality will be a bit more varied.
The only thing we’re really certain of is that we will be traveling at high altitudes the whole time, in an extremely dry landscape and in an area with minimal infrastructure. No cities, only occasional settlements, long stretches without signal and a land that favors the prepared. We’re full of question marks, but at the same time we feel a peculiar curiosity and respect. Exactly the kind of tension that belongs to travel.
According to available information the road should be paved the whole way. And even if not, we’re prepared. In Salta we rented a Nissan Frontier pickup, which in this part of the world doesn’t seem like an unnecessary luxury at all, but rather a sensible insurance. The car is fully loaded, water topped up and we set off.
The landscape around us
We’re slowly getting used to the character of this land. All around we see hills that rise above the already high road. The road winds and only gradually climbs from the initial roughly 3 500 m a.s.l. up to 3 800 m a.s.l. After about an hour’s drive we stop in the village of Susques.
According to the map there should be a petrol station here, and since we want to be sure we still have sufficient reserve, we try to find it. Eventually we find the station at the end of the village, high on a hill. We fill the tank and, given that hunger is slowly overcoming us, we also set out to look for a restaurant.
Restaurant at the end of the world
Susques is truly a small, typical Andean village and finding a restaurant doesn’t take long. Probably because there are only a few streets. In the end we find ourselves in an unassuming restaurant as the only guests and we’re actually served only by the house lady, who is probably as surprised by our visit as we are surprised by the place we’ve found ourselves in. Using gestures we order the only dish she can prepare for us – a slice of grilled meat with a side and a salad. We’ll have a few similar experiences before we understand that such a meal is actually above standard here and should be appreciated. I won’t even go into the fact that it cost us almost nothing. A pleasant surprise is the possibility to connect to Wi‑Fi and toilets at a very decent level. We came here full of uncertainty, but we leave well fed and with a good feeling.
As we leave the village we are treated to an unusual sight of a large number of villagers watching a football match being played on the local field from the main road. A bit rested, with a full tank and, above all, fed, we leave Susques and continue our journey.
We head for the border
It’s still over 100 kilometers to the Chile-Argentina border. At this stage the road continues to climb gradually but steadily up to about 4 250 m a.s.l. After a little more than an hour’s drive we arrive in the last Argentine village, Jama, at the end of which the border control is located. It works here a bit differently than one would expect. You need to park the car, get out and with your documents go to the nearby building where both border checks operate at once – Argentine and Chilean. All travel documents are thoroughly examined – passport, in my case the Paraguayan resident card – cédula. Another check concerns the vehicle papers. The rental company provided us with the necessary documents, which the official confirms here. There’s also an inspection of the car itself and the luggage. According to local rules it’s not allowed to transport many specific types of food. Although we have some supplies in the car, the inspection doesn’t object. After about thirty minutes of various checks we are finally allowed to continue.
The border itself is just a short distance from the border control. It’s marked relatively modestly and we pass it unnoticed by mistake. Since I want a photo by the border stone, I quickly turn the car around and we return to the place where the imaginary line separating the two states runs. There is a small parking area and instead of a border stone you can find a typical metal structure with a mounted sign that reads Argentina on one side and Chile on the other. After taking photos and a short break we set off on the final phase of our journey to San Pedro de Atacama.
This is where dreams are born
This part of the road probably brings us the most surprises. The first thing I expected was that from the border the road would only descend. The opposite was true. The climb continued for a long time and the highest point turned out to be the pass, already on Chilean territory, at a respectable 4 831 m a.s.l. Another surprise was the change in the character of the landscape. While the Argentine side appeared relatively monotonous, desert-like and dry, on the Chilean side everything looked somehow more colorful. Especially striking were the stretches around the local lagoons. Bodies of water full of flamingos and, in the background, the colorful slopes of the Altiplano peaks are views that quickly etched themselves into our memory.
The most interesting, however, comes just a few kilometers before our destination. We pass the turnoff to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array research complex unnoticed (since at the time of our visit we didn’t even know such a thing existed), but very quickly we are stopped by a turnoff towards Bolivia. The Chile-Bolivia border is literally just a short distance from us and if it weren’t for the setting sun we would definitely have gone that way to take a look. In the end though we conclude it’s smarter to reach San Pedro de Atacama in daylight. What draws our gaze the most, however, is the massive pyramidal volcano to our right. It is without doubt the dominant feature of this area. The hill, whose name we did not yet know at that moment, looks like an icon from an encyclopedia. Nothing here captures attention more than this silently standing triangle. This sight affected me so much that at the first opportunity I check the map for the name of this volcano – it is the Licancabur volcano.
And so it happened that on this day we not only for the first time crossed the Andes from one side to the other, but at the same time my new dream was born here – to one day climb that very volcano, which so strongly dominated the end of our journey.
All that remained for us that day was a relatively endless descent from the plateau down to the town of San Pedro de Atacama. Filled with impressions from the unique road, we still check into a local hotel in daylight and, exhausted, fall into bed.
Facts about the Paso de Jama pass
- Name: Paso de Jama
- Location: border crossing between Argentina and Chile
- Highest point: approximately 4 831 m a.s.l. (on the Chilean side)
- Connects: northwestern Argentina (Jujuy province) and the San Pedro de Atacama area in Chile
- Road type: paved, passable year-round (depending on weather)
- Landscape character: high-altitude Altiplano, desert environment, lagoons and salt flats
- Points of interest nearby: lagoons with flamingos, the Licancabur volcano, the research complex Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)
Paso de Jama ranks among the highest and also most scenic road passes in the Andes and is one of the main gateways between Argentina and the Atacama Desert.